House (TV series)

House (also called House, M.D.) is an American television medical drama that originally ran on the Fox network for eight seasons, from November 16, 2004 to May 21, 2012. The show's main character is Dr. Gregory House (Hugh Laurie), a pain medication-dependent, unconventional, misanthropic medical genius who leads a team of diagnosticians at the fictional Princeton–Plainsboro Teaching Hospital (PPTH) in New Jersey. The show's premise originated with Paul Attanasio, while David Shore, who is credited as creator, was primarily responsible for the conception of the title character. The show's executive producers included Shore, Attanasio, Attanasio's business partner Katie Jacobs, and film director Bryan Singer. It was filmed largely in Century City.

House

A house is a building that functions as a home, ranging from simple dwellings such as rudimentary huts of nomadic tribes and the improvised shacks in shantytowns to complex, fixed structures of wood, brick, marble or other materials containing plumbing, ventilation and electrical systems. Most conventional modern houses in Western cultures will contain a bedroom, bathroom, kitchen or cooking area, and a living room. In traditional agriculture-oriented societies, domestic animals such as chickens or larger livestock (like cattle) may share part of the house with humans. The social unit that lives in a house is known as a household. Most commonly, a household is a family unit of some kind, although households may also be other social groups or individuals. The design and structure of the house is also subject to change as a consequence of globalization, urbanization and other social, economic, demographic, and technological reasons. Various other cultural factors also influence the building style and patterns of domestic space.

Hugh Laurie

James Hugh Calum Laurie, OBE (born 11 June 1959) (/ˌhjuː ˈlɒri/), is an English actor, writer, director, musician, singer, comedian, and author. He first became known as one-half of the Fry and Laurie double act with his friend and comedy partner Stephen Fry, whom he joined in the cast of A Bit of Fry & Laurie, Blackadder, and Jeeves and Wooster in the 1980s and 1990s.

From 2004 to 2012, he played Dr. Gregory House, the protagonist of House, for which he received two Golden Globe awards and two Screen Actors Guild awards. Laurie was listed in the 2011 Guinness World Records as the most watched leading man on television and was one of the highest-paid actors in a television drama, earning £250,000 ($409,000) per episode in House.

Early life

Laurie was born in Oxford. The youngest of four children, he has an older brother named Charles Alexander Lyon Mundell Laurie and two older sisters named Susan and Janet. He had a strained relationship with his mother, Patricia (née Laidlaw). He notes that his mother "was Presbyterian by character, by mood" and that he was "a frustration to her... she didn't like me". His father, William George Ranald Mundell Laurie, was a doctor who also won an Olympic gold medal in the coxless pairs (rowing) at the 1948 London Games.

Gregory House

Gregory House, MD — typically referred to simply as House — is the title character of the American medical drama series House. Portrayed by English actor Hugh Laurie, he leads a team of diagnosticians as the Head of Diagnostic Medicine at the fictional Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital in New Jersey based on Yale-New Haven Hospital.

House's character, created by David Shore, has been described as a misanthrope, cynic, narcissist, and curmudgeon, the last of which was named one of the top television words of 2005 in honor of the character. He is the only character to appear in all 177 episodes and except for Wilson's brief appearance, is the only regular character to appear in the season six premiere.

In the series, the character's unorthodox diagnostic approaches, radical therapeutic motives, and stalwart rationality have resulted in much conflict between him and his colleagues. House is also often portrayed as lacking sympathy for his patients, a practice that allots him time to solve pathological enigmas. The character is partly inspired by Sherlock Holmes. A portion of the show's plot centers on House's habitual use of Vicodin to manage pain stemming from a leg infarction involving his quadriceps muscle some years earlier, an injury that forces him to walk with a cane. This addiction is also one of the many parallels to Holmes, who was a habitual user of cocaine.